Legendary Civil War brings to life the Civil War story line from Marvel Comics. The Civil War comic series was one of my favorite story lines from Marvel. In Civil War, the New Warriors were fighting a villain called Nitro and accidentally caused him to explode killing hundreds of people. Due to this accident and all the other damage caused by fighting villains, the government became concerned and felt that heroes needed to be registered and work within guidelines. The government passed the Super Hero Registration Act with the support of Iron Man and many other heroes. A lot of heroes did not agree with the act and felt the government was overstepping the line and causing extra risk to their lives. These heroes became wanted criminals and the leader behind this movement was Captain America. Both sides had good reasons for their stances and neither side was going to back down. The question became, Which side will you choose? I will not spoil the rest of the story for you and encourage you to check it out. Legendary Civil War puts you in that same position. Divided cards will have you choose which hero will be on your team. I invite you to read along as I give you my take on the newest expansion to the Legendary Marvel series, Civil War.

Divided Cards Several new elements have been added with this expansion. Each hero will have some of their cards divided. The card will be split down the middle horizontally and have a mini version of a card on each side of the split. One side will contain the hero that is associated with the deck and the other side will feature someone linked to that hero but has chosen the other position in the war. When purchasing the card, you only pay one of the costs on the card. Each time you play the card you will decide which of the two heroes to use. The side you choose to not use that turn will not be available during the full turn. Icons, numbers and abilities on that side will be ignored. Each side has their own flavor such as attacking or recruiting. Some of the hero decks contain only divided cards. Black Panther and Storm were married during these events but chose different sides. The famous duo Cloak and Dagger also have a hero deck together that is divided.

New Keywords Civil War also introduces several new keywords. The keyword "Size-Changing" represents those heroes that can change their size, such as Goliath and Stature. If a hero in the HQ has this keyword with a icon next to it means that they have a discount of 2 purchase as long as you have already played a card with that icon. If a villain card has that keyword with a icon next to it, you can defeat that villain for 2 less if you have played a card with that icon on it. The keyword "Fortify" represents villains setting up traps in areas and making it harder to fight in those areas. Villains may have the keyword "Escape: Fortify Bank or mastermind". If that villain escapes without be defeated, they will fortify the area mentioned in the keyword. What happens in the fortified space is explained on the card such as villains on the space get +1 attack. If a villain fortifies a mastermind, you must first defeat that villain before taking on the mastermind. The last new keyword is " S.H.I.E.L.D Clearance". SHIELD is on the pro-registration side and will be among the possible villains you will face. If a villain has the keyword SHIELD Clearance, you must discard a SHIELD icon hero in addition to the cost of fighting that villain. A mastermind may have Double SHIELD Clearance forcing you to discard 2 cards with SHIELD icons on them. If you are playing with heroes from the Villains set, you may use Hydra icons instead of SHIELD icons to discard. Each new keyword adds to the theme of Civil War and demonstrates how that hero or villain is affected by the events.

What is all included Civil War adds 16 new hero stacks and introduces the Young Avengers into the Legendary series. While most of the new heroes are ones you would only recognize from the Civil War story line or from the pages of recent issues, there are some favorites that do return. Spiderman is back as Peter Parker and Captain America has a new deck as well. There are 7 new villain groups that are comprised of Thunderbolts, Great Lakes Avengers and other heroes on the Pro-Registration side. The new masterminds are a mix of heroes and villains from the series. Iron Man and Thor (Ragnarok) represent some of the main enemies that you will face during your adventures. The Pet Avengers make their debut as special sidekicks that you can add to the game. New Grievous Wounds are added that are harder to cure than normal wounds. Each has their own special way of curing. There are 8 new schemes that follow some of the various story line spinoffs from the Civil War story line. This new big box expansion adds a lot of new items to keep Legendary fresh for more plays to come.

Final Thoughts The Civil War story line is still one of my favorite in comic history to date. Legendary Civil War does a nice job of incorporating the theme into the mechanics with divided cards and heroes added to mastermind and villain decks. I was a fan of adding Young Avengers to the list of playable characters and hope to see other favorites like the Runaways and Hawkeye (girl version). I was disappointed to see another deck of Captain America and Spiderman. I know they were a huge part of the story line, but we already have a lot of decks involving them. The schemes were disappointing compared to the flavor the schemes have had in the previous three expansions. The schemes in this one felt more like get x number of twists and lose. Fortify and Size-Changing were excellent additions for keywords and add to the gameplay. The art is very good and compares nicely with the comics. Civil War is right in the middle of my ranking of the Legendary expansions. If you like Legendary and have some of the expansions, then Civil War is going to be a buy for you. If you do not like Legendary or feel like you are getting bored with the series, Civil War will do little to change your opinion. I found it to be a nice addition and will add it to my giant Legendary Marvel collection that needs a solid storage solution. Next expansion is the Deadpool set (very excited), but after that I will be curious where they take series and with what new characters they introduce.

Taco gives Legendary Civil War a rating of...

7.75 out of 10

Pros:+ Divided cards work nicely for gameplay and theme+Young Avengers is a great addition+Fortify and Size-Changing are excellent new keywords+Civil War story line

Cons:- Another Spiderman and Captain America deck- Schemes felt bland compared to previous expansions- SHIELD Clearance is annoying - Would like to see more well known villains get Mastermind treatment- Storage solution for those owning everything